Thursday, March 12, 2009

Unmentionables: Clintons Effort Voter Suppression

What voter suppression efforts was the author of this piece referencing? Hillary Clinton's objection to caucus voters in Las Vegas casinos?

No, hint hint. Perpetual charges that reviewing and 'purging' ineligible names or fraudulent names from the voter rolls somehow prevents voters from exercising their right to vote.

Net the Truth Online

Vote Dilution Claims Get Setback, But Reason For Hope Remainsposted by: Jessica Pieklo Despite evidence of record turnout in the November 4th election, news this week confirms that this country has far to go in protecting the right of all its citizens to vote. First is a report from the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, a consortium of more than 150 university researchers. The CCES report found that four to five million voters failed to cast a ballot in the November election as a result of registration problems or because they did not receive absentee ballots. This is roughly the same number of voters disenfranchised in the 2000 election.

Second is the 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court, issued Monday, limiting the scope of protections provided by the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 of that Act seeks to preserve minority voting power in the face of redistricting efforts that would have the effect of diluting minority votes. The decision now provides that only election districts where minorities make up at least 50% of the voting-age population are entitled to protection from vote-dilution redistricting efforts.

The North Carolina district at issue in the case had been redrawn in 2003 in an effort to preserve minority voting power in the face of changing demographics and legal concerns regarding the shape of the district. North Carolina officials settled on a combining two parts of a county to create a compact district with about 39% representation of black voters. The Court rejected this compromise district but also sparked a heated debate among the Justices about how best to protect minority voting rights without entrenching racially polarized voting.

The significance of the decision is not the potential to minimize the amount of districts that now receive protection from vote dilution efforts, though the effect of this decision could be significant in elections to come. Rather, the real significance of the case is the insight in provides to another major voting rights case pending before the Court.

That case deals with the "pre-clearance" Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That section requires certain state and local governments to obtain permission from the Department of Justice or a federal court before making any changes to any laws that pertain to voting. Those that fall under the mandates of Section 5 have a long history of racially-motivated vote suppression efforts.

Certain members of the Court, most notably Chief Justice Roberts, have indicated they would welcome any opportunity to remove the federal government from state and local election efforts. They point to the election of President Obama as proof positive that this country has remedied any history of minority voter exclusion. Of course, this view entirely disregards efforts, as recent as the November election, to suppress voter turnout in districts heavily populated with minority voters.

Our commitment has been to provide viewers with an effort to find truth on a variety of public policy issues, and relay findings, to expand a base of knowledge for viewer information and opinion-forming, no matter one's political affiliation.

We see danger for us all on three fronts:

An announced potential for a global financial crisis and projected global currency, global government, and new world order.

A coming to fruition plan for some 34 states to propose a uniform amendment or amendments to the U.S. Constitution which may automatically present an Article V Convention.

An organized effort by populists to support state legislatures to call an Article V Convention for any number of reasons.

We continue to work to present the kind of information to convince viewers to be ever vigilant. No matter whom we cite on our pages, when we find groups, organizations, political Parties, or notable individuals in support of any one of the above, we are wary, no matter if we agree on other issues of importance.

We have for instance cited Judge Napolitano's Freedom series on the Constitution broadcast on Fox Nation, yet we remain strongly wary of him due to his stated position to encourage Tea Party participants and others to push state legislatures to adopt a resolution to call for a 2nd Convention.

We cannot stress how important it is for your objection to be heard to your own state's legislature and Governor. According to tracking results from some notables including DeWeese and Gary Kreeps - barring it may be ruled previous resolutions adopted by an individual state and already on the formal-call list are voided due to non-uniformity or outdatedness - there may already be some 31 or 32 potentially valid Convention Calls.

34 state resolutions are the magic number which will initiate, basically automatically, a call for convening an Article V Convention.

This site also notes an essay by Gary Kreep, co-founder of the United States Justice Foundation. He too notes how very close an automatic Constitutional Convention call is given factors that even include some states' attempts to rescind former calls.

We also note an article by Kelleigh Nelson Saving the Republic Part 3 which disputes an automatic call is only some two states away. We also note Nelson's reference to a book we also have in our files which is among the best we've read.

Constitution In Crisis Joan Collins and Ken Hill

We'll list other material relied upon to come to the conclusion that despite how many states in actuality have standing convention calls, action is paramount today to thwart a potential gathering storm for support such as Rand Paul's and Judge Andrew Napalitano's.

Our hope is to be among those who continue to warn it is imperative a 2nd Constitutional Convention never happen. The mechanism for Congress to act on presenting its own Amendment or Amendments to the Constitution is already in place. The normal route has not been used all that much because it is known the Amendment or Amendments which are then ratified by the next step - states ratification process - will stand as an alteration of the U.S. Constitution unless and until a subsequent Congress mounts a similar process to repeal the Amendment.

So many others have long-standing in noting the absolute dangers of an Article V Convention.

Among them:

Phyllis Schlafly

McManus

John Birch Society

World Net Daily

We do not claim support with the named on every issue.

It is crucial we, the people of the United States prevent our representatives from enacting any measures that take away U.S. sovereignty and curb or curtail individual and unalienable rights.

You can help by becoming informed and using the power of the pen to attempt to convince such as Rand Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano of these noted dangers of an Article V Constitutional Convention.

Climatologist Skeptic James Spann

Incognito for security purposes

My blog was caught twice in a robot spam review and had been offline for several months. Fortunately, Blogger Help Forum exchanges with a real person and top contributor resulted in Net the Truth Online being deemed OK. Should the spam-robots misidentify us again, here's where and what happened. My blog pre=this=mess was going just fine. Then I received notice while away my blog was deleted. Help. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=1714c2aa73405a98&hl=en&fid=1714c2aa73405a980004933503778adc